I’ve noted recently that the anti-patent ideologues are now claiming that patents prevent sharing of knowledge and information. Of course what they are missing is that patents can make it possible to share information and still keep ownership. Thus a strong, effective patent system encourages disclosure and makes society open to ideas.
AIPPI 41st World Intellectual Property Congress
IP Protection for Software-related Inventions
In the software sector, the protection of software-implemented inventions has come under increasing scrutiny in recent years. In the early days of computing, commercial software development was led by a handful of hardware manufacturers that catered primarily to large enterprises. In that era, firms viewed trade secret or confidential information protection as the best means of protecting innovative new software ideas against misappropriation. Given the rise during the 1970’s of both the volume of users as well as the ability to rapidly copy new software products, companies were increasingly concerned about piracy and turned to copyright law to protect and enforce their rights. While software innovators continue to rely on trade secret and copyright protection, patent protection has emerged in recent years as a tool that is widely used for the protection of software-implemented inventions. Patents on software-implemented inventions allow the sharing of technical information with others while retaining the ability to be compensated for investments in research and development that lead to new products and functionality.
The workshop will provide an overview of this parallel evolution of commercial software development and use of various tools for intellectual property protection. The intellectual property systems of various countries have taken different approaches regarding the direction and speed of this evolution. The speakers in the workshop will discuss these different approaches and, in this connection, the workshop will take particular advantage of the work of AIPPI Special Committee Q132 on Patent Protection for Computer Software Related Inventions.
Moderator: Richard Wilder, Microsoft Corp. Redmond, WA, USA
Speakers:
Gustavo de Freitas Morais, Danneman Siemsen Sao Paulo, Brazil
Pravin Arnand, Arnand & Arnand New Delhi, India
F. Scott Kieff, Washington University School of Law St. Louis, MI, USA
Karen Copenhaver, Choate Hall & Stewart LLP Boston, MA, USA
Leo Steenbeek, Philips Intellectual Property & Standards Eindhoven, Netherlands
